He never saw it coming...

A little background, in case I haven't told you; I love birthdays. I make a pretty big deal out of them. I love celebrating them, I love planning them, and this year, I loved plotting to blindside my husband for one.

Ben turned the big 3-0 this year, and I thought it was a pretty big deal. So I thought a surprise party was in order. Me and my grand ideas.

It took a long time to pull this off, and there were several (as in the rest of the family and his good friends) other liars involved, but it was totally worth every stressed-out, catch my tongue, look into my husbands eyes and flat out lie, minute of it.

I knew I wanted to do something for Ben, and when we decided to do a guy's golf weekend and have it be a surprise, I thought "PERFECT." First we had to find a weekend that worked for everyone. Nightmare #1.

Then we had to find a location. Nightmare #2

Then I had to get Ben to this location without suspecting anything. Nightmares #3 thru 10.

We finally realized Savannah would be perfect (and we all had a place to stay, thanks to Lu, the ever-generous and gracious host. But really, she just likes a big party.) So I thought I would just tell Ben I wanted to go to Savannah for the weekend, and both of us take Friday off work, and then when we got there everyone would surprise him by being there. Simple. Right?

Au contraire.

My devoted workaholic above-and-beyond husband wouldn't just take a day off work.

Got to be kidding me.

So I had to figure out how to make him take a day off work to get his little boo-tay over to Georgia.

We somehow concocted a story about how there was going to be a Family Day one weekend for his dad's company, and his dad's boss had called his mom to tell her that his dad would be getting some distinguished service award, and wouldn't it be great if we could all be there? (Because we knew Ben would take a day off if it was for someone else other than himself. ) Oh, but his dad didn't know he was getting the award, so we couldn't say anything to him about it (we threw in that kink for some reason, but I can't remember why. Something about how if Ben and his dad didn't talk about it, there would be less of a chance of accidentally spilling the beans. Good grief that only complicated things so much worse.)

So Ben's mom tells him this story, and he takes that blessed day off work.

It just escalated into an all out Lie Fest from there.

I wish I could remember how many times his mom and I fumbled and almost got all of our stories confused. I was a stress ball. I mean, I couldn't even keep who-knew-what and all of our stories straight. I will never be a secret service agent. If I ever have to take on a secret identity, I'm screwed.

We drove down to Savannah last Thursday night, and Ben's brothers, aunt, uncle, cousin, and mom shuffled him (not that he was kicking and screaming) out of the house to go play golf Friday morning.

While they were gone Dave helped me with Kaelyn (by helped I only mean he held her and spoiled her rotten for 5 hours :) and I got the cakes, put up the decorations, and welcomed his surprise friends.

So they get in from golf Friday afternoon, and Ben walks in, notices the decorations, and smiles. I know he was thinking "Aw. Sweet." But he had no idea.

So then Brian and Betsy come walking around the corner, and he flips. It was hilarious.

Then later Greg shows up, flip #2, and we're all standing around, and my favorite part was when Ben said "Wait. You mean there's no Family Day for dad's work tomorrow??"

"No, dude. We're all playing golf."

"OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Oh, I wish I couldv'e gotten that on tape.


Here's a few of the party:


(Interesting White fact: Ben and his brother Mike have the same birthday, 2 years apart. Wild huh??)

Here are the bday boys:

Family shot:Tay and K!Kaelyn in her party dress!

All the Liars (sans the Gaskins...) and the birthday boy:

The next day we hit the town, and enjoyed another trip to The Crab Shack..

Who tackled 25 lbs of shellfish and low country boil?? We did.

Kaelyn tried to tell him what was up...

We also played some vicious games of horse shoes, and ladder ball.

I will have you know that Betsy and I whipped some tail against the boys in ladder ball. Want some? Bring it.

It was an awesome surprise and an awesome weekend. Thanks to Ben's parents for helping me lie to their son, to Ben's brother's for lying to him with me, to his other family members for extending the lie, and to Ben's friends to lying to him even more... and to Ben, who never doubted me for a second.

Happy 30th babe. Hope it was a good one :)

xoxox

dae